closing comments of every meeting in the form of a tip, resource or challenge.
Many of these little two or three minute talks will be included in this blog. Here is a first in this series.
(I’d appreciate hearing your comments.)
I firmly believe that two years of participation is a good Toastmastersclub will yield a transforming
effect on anyone’s speaking ability. And so I challenged our group with the idea of transformation.
“Let’s start of with a quick definition of the work ‘transformation.’ A change or alteration, especially
a radical one. I’ll focused on the word, radical!
“You don’t want a moderate or so-so change in our speaking ability. You want a radical one.”
I suggested that the best picture most of us have of the word,transformation is how to humble caterpillar
changes into a colorfulbutterfly. (Then I drew my “worm” and “butterfly” on the whiteboard.)
“You all want be beautiful butterflys of a public speaker, , , darting around the flowers of our new world.
But all we know now is crawling in the dirt of that same garden. It’s not cool image, is it?
“But you also know there is a phase between caterpillar and butterfly. And it isn’t always pretty. You
might even think it is like being dead. It’s not the picture you want to hold in your mind very long.
“But it is necessary!”
We all have to spend the necessary time in the bad spots, the dark cocoon, , , in a Toastmasters club.
Like being tongue-tied when you stand up for Table Topics. Or, like all the “ahas” when you are the
Toastmaster. Or, like running out of time and completely blowing the closing of your speech.
This stuff isn’t pretty but it works.
(Then I draw a likeness of a cocoon
between the first two images.)
the cocoon stage is a must,” and
then I challenge the whole club to
commit to helping each other
through these difficult times.
Then I give them the good news—
this crazy process can actually be
a lot of fun. We all agree that
we’ll make it so!
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